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I think that most people don’t realise just how much words can hold sway over our internal decision-making. We invent our first impressions within the first seven seconds of seeing something, based off of our prior experience (which can be swayed too). This means, that basically, we make our judgement on if we “like” something or don’t “like” something just after we first see it.
Something that looks good, that can pay a good marketing team, can obviously manipulate this, and make you like something. It won’t work all the time, but it’ll work enough of the time to the degree that it doesn’t really matter about the skeptics and the people who think that can see through it. Most people won’t even notice they’re being swayed.
This thing moves with the times, otherwise it doesn’t work. Now, we’ve got the archetype of “chaotic social media admin” that is really hard to spot as manipulative advertising, which it always is.
This is on the whole, what brands can bank on. Because they don’t need to stick to the truth, they don’t need to contribute the development of individuals or communities, and they don’t need to do anything other than get you to buy, today or tomorrow.
We’re getting used to living a life outside of our control. One that is shifting, to almost entirely rely on external norms and external stimuli, existing in a haze, to work, buy, eat, drink, and die. To the economy, that’s the only thing anybody does, and the living and the consciousness does not change your numbers, but by making life only about these things, that increases your numbers, and increases theirs.
But this is a massive problem for more reasons than one. Sure, external norms have their place, but we have an inner life, we have an individuality, we have prefrences, we have internal principles that are being (or have been) squashed by a world that cares more about expectations than us. As a pretty general rule, external norms should be shaped by us, actively, as an emanation of the individuality. They should not change us, or restrict us, and right now, even if you might not realise it, they do.
How, then, could a movement that values freedom and doesn’t want to constrict or unduly sway the individuality, exist in a world like the one we have today? The answer is simple; with difficulty.
Anthroposophy, a word that means “human wisdom” has been used to describe a kind of spiritual science: a way of knowing, grounded in freedom, balance, and practical insight. But as a word, it fails the first-impression test. It’s long, strange, and really easy to dismiss. It sounds like a disease or an obscure cult. But, don’t just go with your first impressions. Research it, find out what it is and make a decision based on what it actually is, and not just because it sounds and looks good or bad.
And spiritual science might seem like a contradiction, but we’ll get to that. Not everything is black or white, things are much more difficult than they might seem, even if they are actually quite simple. It’s always easy to say that something is simple with hindsight, but it’s also hard to know if we have or don’t have hindsight at basically any given time.
This isn’t about dogma, or microscopes, or abstract belief. It’s about using the best tools we have; self-awareness & thinking, emotions, concrete experiences, to understand what it means to be human.
Importantly, it doesn’t require the pushing aside of ourselves for what is outside ourselves, but the pushing aside of what is outside of ourselves for ourselves. No matter what that is, even if it means putting this book down and never giving Camelot House Publishing another penny. What is right for you, is right for you, and the way everything is today, most of the time, you’re not being the unreasonable one.
But anthroposophy, to put it simply, is this:
A path of knowledge, starting with the Spiritual in the Human being, and re-introducing it to the Spiritual in the Universe.
It doesn’t come from argument. It begins as a need, something felt deep in the heart, in the inner life. Urgency, but quiet, inside.
This path justifies itself only if it speaks to that need, if it meets it honestly. No one is asked to believe. Only those who feel something calling from within, who must ask certain questions about what it means to be human, about the nature of the world, will be drawn to it. For them, these questions aren’t abstract. They’re like hunger. Like thirst.
Anthroposophy is for those who can’t not ask. And for those, it offers a way to begin. Answering the simple but in-no-way-simple many thousand year old maxim; “Man, know thyself!”
Not just emotionally, not just scientifically, not just spiritually. All of it. And those insights, when we live with them, become (very) practical.
We’ll get to that as well.
But basically, Anthroposophy, or Spiritual Science is a helpful little thing that can be quite important in self-development (though it’s not the only thing in the world that does this), and insights got from this self-development can be used in practical ways, internally and externally, even in businesses, schools, farms and charities. There are also other insights from people who have developed themselves to a high degree, and have given cutting-edge insights on a whole range of different topics, and lots of these are avaliable now, and aren’t that hard to find past one google search.
But, we aren’t looking to just push these things onto people. These ideas are there to be lived with, thought about, considered at every level, not just accepted or rejected, but evaluated for what they are. What you take away from this book is the result of what, after consideration, you take away from the book. There is no intention of changing anyone in a way that goes against their individuality, like there is basically everywhere else (just look, really!). We don’t do dogma.
But this also is a problem. Trying to be honest, trying to make people think, trying to have no undue influence, is not really a recipe for success. And the Anthroposophical Movement has been finding this out for quite a long time. By just trying to be as honest as possible, we are dealt a bad hand by default. Just trying to make available spiritual insights and ways of self-development is difficult for us, and for you, understanding or doing it won’t be easy or straightforward at all, and it might not even involve this book. Everyone has different needs, a different individuality, a different life. But we can try. And that’s what Anthroposophy is.
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